Civilization and Democracy: The Salvernini Anthology of Cattaneo's Writings

by Carlo Cattaneo, Carlo Lacaita (Editor), Filippo Sabetti (Editor), David Gibbons (Translator)

Overview

Nineteenth-century Italy is a vast, unexplored territory in the history of modern political thought and liberal democratic theory. Apart from Mazzini, Pareto, and Mosca, the authors of this period are little read, even though their central concerns – the riddle of human liberation, progress, and liberty – are as important today as ever. This volume presents a selection of the writings of Carlo Cattaneo (1801-1869), one of the period's most important thinkers, as selected by an equally important personage of a subsequent time, the anti-Fascist intellectual Gaetano Salvemini.

Cattaneo had a profound sense of the historical contingencies underlying the quest both to understand human affairs and to realize a self-governing society. Cattaneo's ideas and framework of analysis – like those of John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville – were not shaped by a narrow intra-academic agenda but by the great social, economic, and political transformations of his time. The issues he addressed included problems of revolution, reform, and change in the passage to modernity, which extended far beyond the confines of nineteenth-century Italy.

The selection of original pieces presented in this translation is preceded by an introduction by the editors, Carlo G. Lacaita and Filippo Sabetti, which guides the reader through Cattaneo's thinking and puts it in a comparative context. Ultimately, however, it is the editors' goal to let this profound Italian thinker speak for himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442657984
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	12/15/2006
Series:	Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	949 KB

About the Author

Carlo Cattaneo (1801-1869) was a philosopher and political economist.

Carlo G. Lacaita, formerly Professor of Contemporary History in the Faculty of Political Science, University of Milan, is chairman of the scientific committee for the publication of the works of Carlo Cattaneo and the Association for the History of Science and Technology in the Age of Industrialization (ASSTI).

Filippo Sabetti is a professor of Political Science at McGill University.

David Gibbons is a translator and researcher based in northern Italy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     xi
Abbreviations of Cattaneo's Collected Works     xiii
Introduction: Carlo Cattaneo and Varieties of Liberalism   Carlo G. Lacaita   Filippo Sabetti     3
The Context     6
Cattaneo's Standing in Intellectual Life     13
The Paradigmatic Significance of Cattaneo     17
Salvemini's Discovery of Cattaneo     29
Promoting Cattaneo's Ideas     38
The Organization of Salvemini's Anthology     43
Gaetano Salvemini: The Making of a Public Intellectual     45
Cattaneo's Life and Work   Gaetano Salvemini     53
Early Studies     53
Il Politecnico     55
Political Ideas Prior to 1848     56
The Events of 1848     60
Between 1848 and 1860     63
Federalism     66
The Nation in Arms     70
Defeat     71
His Final Years     74
Selected Writings
International Affairs
The Far East     79
The New World of the Pacific Ocean     80
The British Empire     81
The United States of America     86
French Centralization     87
The Austrian Army andNationalist Issues     88
Swiss Neutrality     90
The Ottoman Question     91
International Solidarity     93
Public Economy
Agriculture in Lombardy     94
The Basis of Fertility     97
Tendency of Capital toward Land Ownership     97
The Transportation Problem in Sicily     99
Uncultivated Land     100
Agriculture Comes from the Cities     100
Freedom of the Seas     102
Commerce     103
Modern Economic Life     104
Currents of World Trade     105
The Geographical Position of Milan     108
Protected Markets and Commercial Power     109
Economic Nationalism     110
Raw Materials     111
Nascent Industries     112
From Protectionism to Freedom     112
'White' Coal     113
In Favor of an Active, Industrious Life     113
The Abolition of Capital     116
Intelligence and Will as Sources of Wealth     116
Education and Militia
Division of Labor in Universities     120
Literary Education     122
Scientific Education     123
The Study of the Bible      125
Agricultural Training     126
Military Training     127
War and Civilization     128
Railroads and War     129
The Nation in Arms     130
The First Military Force Is the Will     133
Local Autonomy
The Nation in Arms and Federalism     136
Local Patriotism     137
Autonomy for Sardinia     138
The Error of Centralization     140
The Illusion of the Constituent Assembly     141
The Servile Status of the Communes     141
The Regions Must Arise     142
On the Independence of Small Communes     143
The Social Question
The Advent of the Fourth Estate     146
The Fifth and Sixth Estates     146
The Comforts of the Poor     147
Universal Suffrage     147
The New Criminal Law     149
Literature
History and Poetry     151
Opera in Music and Drama in Prose     154
The Prejudices of Romantics     156
The Feebleness of Italian Culture     158
Popular Writing     161
The French Language     162
Heine     162
Byron      163
Translations     163
The Common Enterprise of Humanity     163
Aspects of World History
The Polygenic Origins of Humanity     165
The Origins of European Civilization     168
The Presumed Flood of Peoples     175
Languages and Dialects     176
Living Languages     177
Roman Unity     178
The Breakup of Roman Civilization     180
The Revolt of the Mercenaries     182
Feudal Society     184
Relics of Ancient Civilization     185
Classes and Nations in the Middle Ages     186
The Origins of Communes     186
Communal Wars     188
Firearms     189
National States     191
The Decadence of Mercantile Cities in the Middle Ages     192
The French and Spanish in Lombardy     193
The Risorgimento
Lombard Reforms in the Eighteenth Century     195
Napoleon and Italy     198
Italian National Sentiment     199
The Five Days     202
The Tricolor     213
1848     214
Pius IX     216
Human Sciences
Experimental Science and Metaphysical Science     218
The Role of Philosophy     219
Man in History and Metaphysics     221
Sensation in Associated Minds     222
Ideas as Products of Associated Minds     223
Eighteenth-Century Rationalism and Nineteenth-Century Historicity     225
Historical Studies     227
False Accounts of Civilization     229
Natural Conditions and Intellectual Progress     234
Foreign Interference     235
Intellect and Will in Social Life     236
The Force of Tradition     240
Thoughts Come from Facts, before Facts Come from Thoughts     241
References     243
Index     253